MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2020) A new director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO) needs to make sure that the member states of the trade body understand that they need to react promptly in extraordinary circumstances such as the COVID-19 pandemic, outgoing WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo said on Thursday.
"We have to respond in an organization that is perceived as a slow organization that takes time to react. When we face these emergencies, we have to be ready to react quickly and members have to be with a right mindset, the right frame of mind to react quickly to these things. What I would tell to my successor is to make sure members understand that they need to act fast sometimes, that we don't have the luxury of time on our side," Azevedo said at his last press conference before departing the office on August 31.
Azevedo, a Brazilian diplomat, announced his plans to step down in mid-May, saying that WTO needs a more energetic leader, as it is basically "stuck" with internal problems. His resignation comes as the WTO is suffering from a crisis over its mechanism for resolving disputes between members after Washington paralyzed it by blocking new appointments to the Appellate Body last year. US President Donald Trump said that the WTO needed a major reform and suggested that the United States might withdraw from the organization.
Last week, eight candidates running for the office of director-general (DG) held presentations before the WTO General Council. The list of candidates includes Liam Fox, a former UK international trade secretary, and Amina C. Mohamed, a former Kenyan minister for foreign affairs and international trade, among others.
The selection process might last up until November 7 and in the meantime, one of the DG deputies will be selected to serve as an acting chief of WTO. However, no decision on who would be appointed as an acting DG has been made yet by the WTO General Council.
